The Last Day

Rejoice and exult, because your reward is great in heaven; for so did they persecute the prophets who came before. (Apotheosis 4:6-19)

There was one point near the end where the Messiah, in her sweeping scope of the crowd, brought her eyes to rest on Feldman's. Only for an instant, only in passing, but there was a connect. And even in the briefest of glances, her dark, serene, multihued blue eyes penetrated him unnervingly.

He felt simultaneously dizzy, confused and invaded. But he had no opportunity to reflect on the experience. The Messiah's hands rose to the heavens as if bestowing a blessing upon the crowd. And then the slender figure turned abruptly, arms dropping, and calmly descended the steps as the crowd erupted.

The massive audience was in ecstasy. Laughing, crying, praying, fully sated and taken with the rapture of this religious moment. Feldman was fearful that at any second the insensate, joyous mob would surge forward and shock divine sense into some of the more unfortunate faithful near the electric fence, providing Hunter with a little anecdotal footage. But the assembly remained respectful of itself and there was never any danger.

Feldman believed that most of the crowd had been prepared from the onset to accept this Messiah figure as their Savior, regardless of her newly revealed sex. That she did such an effective job surpassing expectations, however, was what sent her audience into this prolonged state of euphoria.

But not all her audience. There were some here who did not come to welcome a new religious icon. Particularly a female one. And they left this encounter with skepticism, scorn and displeasure.

Yet, to all who personally witnessed this unprecedented event, there was no denial that something very extraordinary had happened here.

32

WNN headquarters, Jerusalem, Israel 8:06 A.M., Thursday, January 6, 2000

There you are!” an aide called out with relief, spying Feldman at a coffee cart. “We've been looking all over for you. Sullivan's called a special strategy session in conference room four.”

Leaving his coffee mug behind, a tired-looking Feldman hustled off down the corridor, only to be intercepted by another staff member who stuck her head out a door and called hesitantly to him.

“I–I don't know if I should even bother you with this one,” she second-guessed herself, noting the harried look on Feldman's face, “but I have a long-distance call from Japan-some guy who insists he knows you and has some important news. I can barely understand his accent.” She looked at the scrawled message in her hand. “A Dr. Omato?”

“I'll take it.” Feldman braked, stepping inside the door to accept the phone from her outstretched hand.

“Hello, Dr. Omato, how are you? You're back in Japan now?”

“Hello, Mr. Feldman. Fine. Yes, IDF deport us after we appear on TV.”

“I'm sorry to hear that, sir.”

“No problem. Our work finished. But I have more important news for you now. About Messiah!”

Feldman had been jotting unrelated notes in his pad, but now the astronomer had his full attention.

“You have new information about the Messiah?”

“Yes, Mr. Feldman! Messiah is woman!”

Feldman sighed inwardly, returning his mind to his notepad. “Yes, that seems to be the consensus.”

“No, Mr. Feldman, I mean, Messiah is woman from meteorite crash. She survivor in desert!”

Feldman's pen point tore the page and he jolted upright.

“What!”

“Yes, we see her on TV. She survivor we help after meteorite crash.”

“Are you certain, Dr. Omato? It was dark. You said the woman was injured.”

“Yes, positive. Dr. Hirasuma also agree. Dr. Somu also. We positive.”

“Okay, excellent. That's a great help. You've been very helpful. Can I have someone from our Japanese bureau get a statement from you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Excellent, thank you. Hold for my assistant, please!”

Feldman passed the phone back to the staff member, leaving her with instructions, and headed off to the strategy meeting, his mind churning.

“Good, Jon, you're here!” Sullivan addressed him as he joined the session in progress. “Just to let you know, we're trying to arrange another appointment with Richard Fischer. He returned to his hotel with the Messiah in a rental helicopter a short while ago.”

Feldman found a place at the table between Cissy and another female staffer.

“The Samaritans control the entire hotel grounds now,” Sullivan continued. “It's fenced and heavily guarded and they're not letting anyone enter. If we can get a message through, we're going to offer a handsome sum for a private interview with the Messiah, which we'll want you to conduct, naturally.”

Feldman nodded.

“Right-o.” Sullivan switched topics. “Now let's get back to our concepts for an alternative, backup story tonight. If everyone prefers the idea of developing an analysis of the Messiah's sermon, I'd tike to suggest, Jon, that you consider a co-anchored report with Erin Cross. As our expert on religious issues, Erin has some nice angles to suggest.”

Erin and Hunter were beaming.

“Sure,” Feldman agreed, and noticed Cissy shifting in her chair.

“Let's get to work, then.” Sullivan rubbed his palms together. “Any questions before we begin?”

Feldman raised a hand slightly. “Maybe this is a moot point now, Nigel, but are we all in agreement, the Messiah is a she?”

Sullivan shrugged his shoulders above a wave of bobbing heads and murmured affirmatives. “There doesn't seem to be much argument about that.” He smiled. “And quite attractive, to boot! Perhaps a trifle eccentric, but striking nonetheless, wouldn't you say?”

“But who is she and where in heaven's name did she come from?” Bollinger posed the core question.

“I think I know where she came from,” Feldman offered, and all eyes quickly focused on him. “I got a call a few minutes ago from Dr. Omato, the Japanese astronomer who assisted us before. He and his colleagues are convinced our little Messiah is the missing survivor from the Negev disaster, the injured woman they found in the desert. I'm having our Japanese bureau get their statements.”

“Damn!” Hunter broke the stunned silence. “A shell-shocked, mad scientist with a messiah complex!”

“Or,” Bollinger had been following a similar train of thought, “possibly an amnesia victim caught up in the millenarian brouhaha.”

“Or,” Cissy extrapolated, “an amnesia victim, manipulated by the Samaritans.”

“I think we're on to something here,” Sullivan concurred. “Well done, Jon. Let's resurrect the investigation of the Negev laboratory. Put both teams three and four on it together. And let's keep a lid on the Messiah/survivor story until we see what we can turn up, shall we?”

“Try for a list of personnel working at the institute that night,” Bollinger suggested. “Names, ages, description. Anything to help us identify her.”

“Cock your ears,” Sullivan urged. “Surely someone who knows her true identity has recognized her face from the newscasts by this time. She's not exactly common-looking, now is she?”

There was no disagreement on that score.

“Okay, now on to the matter of a follow-up report on yesterday's sermon.” Sullivan turned to Erin Cross. “Erin, would you be so kind as to share some of your key insights with Jon?”

“Gladly, Nigel.” Erin accepted the floor, fixed her bright smile on Feldman and approached a pull-down screen on the wall behind her.

“I spent the better part of last night doing a comprehensive comparison of the New Beatitudes with the originals,” she explained, scrolling open the screen to reveal a large, side-by-side printout of both sermons. “For now, I'll spare you some of the more technical evaluations, of which there are many-”